


Wolf Song

by BlueMoonHound



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Fluff, Gen, Illustrated, Major Character Injury, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Starvation, feral elves, in which magnus gains 1 idiot wizard to inventory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-04 00:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13352454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMoonHound/pseuds/BlueMoonHound
Summary: “I wanna take a look,” he says. “Maybe it's a dog.”“Doubt it,” Merle grumbles, but he doesn't stop Magnus from lighting a lantern and heading out into the night.





	1. Dog?

“Here's fine,” Magnus decides, brushing aside some leaves and digging a pit to make a campfire. “This is good.”

Merle, a dwarf mercenary Magnus had met upon his journey and hit it off with okay, grunts. He starts whacking down old dead tree branches for firewood. Magnus finishes clearing a spot for their small but serviceable tent while Merle sets the fire roaring.

Magnus drags up some logs, and they sit.

It's awkward. It's always awkward, because Merle hates that they can't always sleep in nice comfortable conditions and Magnus isn't entirely sure how to behave around the dwarf. But they both win bar contests, they both like dogs, and they can both fight, so surely it doesn't matter.

Speaking of dogs.

“Merle, do you hear that?”

“What?”

“There's a rustling.”

Merle's ears wiggle a little. Most races are better in the hearing department than humans, and Merle is no exception.

“yeah,” he grunts. “It bothering you? Sounds like an animal.”

“I wanna take a look,” he says. “Maybe it's a dog.”

“Doubt it,” Merle grumbles, but he doesn't stop Magnus from lighting a lantern and heading out into the night.

It doesn't take Magnus long to find the source of the rustling. It's a-- something-- bent over a carcass, lapping blood off the fur of the animal-- _is that- is that its ribcage_? The thing, whatever it is, it lifts its head, eyes blown wide. Oh. An elf. A bloody, sleepy looking sun elf, hands and face covered in gore. For a moment, Magnus stands frozen.

The elf pushes hair out of its – their – face with a bloody hand, leaving streaks of red in the blonde. They lick blood off their lips, off their front teeth, swallow a little, and turn their full attention to Magnus, sitting back on their haunches.

“Nyello?” Their voice is oddly musical, even for its hoarseness. It sounds less like the elf is sick and more like they haven't talked in ages and ages, presumably for lack of an audience.

“Oh, uh, hi,” Magnus says. “Um, we have a campfire. If you want to cook that.” He gestures at the dead …. it's a cat, isn't it. (Well fuck.) On the ground. “And water. And you can sleep if you want.”

“Elves don't need to sleep,” the elf deadpans, but they pick up the carcass and stand on unsteady legs. They seem both wary and tired at the same time, their ears flicked forward but their face betraying no sign of a smile. “Who else is with you?”

“Just Merle. Merle and I are mercenaries. I dunno, maybe with your tracking skills or something, you could help us out. Won't have to live off animal blood if you can join the crew.” They pick their way back through the woods. The elf makes no acknowledgement of Magnus's statement one way or the other.

“Hey Merle!” Magnus stomps back into the clearing. “Found the dog!”

Merle grunts. “Wasn't a dog, was it.”

“Nope! Found a feral elf instead! And they have food!”

Merle turns to stare at Magnus. “You found a feral elf in the woods drinking blood and decided it was a good idea to lead it back to camp?” He grimaces, looking the elf up and down. “Almighty pan, clean off your _face_.”

“Fuck you too,” the elf rasps. “The name's Taako.” They proceed to drop the cat on the ground near the fire. They stand there for a few minutes before their legs give out (or maybe they're just being dramatic? Magnus isn't sure) and they land on the ground with a thump.

Magnus picks up the cat and starts gutting it.

“What are you doing?” Merle looks vaguely disgusted.

“I mean, it's already dead, we might as well eat it.” Magnus shrugs. “We _should_ eat.”

“Are we gonna give the leftovers to your feral here?”

“I have a fuckin name,” Taako hisses.

“Yea and what kinda fucking name is Taako?”

“It's my _name_.”

“Merle, I know you don't like the them, but they were drinking cats blood so maybe don't get them angry?”

“Him,” Taako says.

“Okay, don't get him angry. Merle. Please. Besides, he can't be my pet dog if he kills you and runs away.”

“I'm not gonna kill anyone,” Taako says, sounding frightened this time. “No more murder for the ol' Taako.”

“You're _covered in blood_.”

“It's _bobcat blood_ , assdick, not dwarf blood. Calm your horses.”

Magnus makes a roasting stick, and sticks the whole thing on it. He puts it over the fire. “Stop arguing.”

Taako reaches out and snags the bobcat's skin, lying in the dirt, and starts licking the blood off it. Merle shudders.

“The hell is _wrong_ with elves?”

“Well I'm sorry we have functional survival reactions,” Taako grumbles. It's muffled through the pelt.

“You've got almost as much blood on your hands as there is on that goddamn skin.”

“Shut up.” His ears are pressed back against his head. His eyes aren't blown wide anymore, and Magnus guesses he's adjusted to the firelight by now. He looks a lot less wild when his eyes aren't glowing. Magnus notes the hint of chipping nail polish on his fingers, bright red. His clothes are ripped and torn but look like they might have been good quality once upon a time. He obviously wasn't _raised_ by ferals.

His clothes also fit him. They _fit_ him, which bothers Magnus for a moment. How long has this man been this underweight? Obviously longer than he's been feral. He shakes the thought.

“So what landed you in the woods?” Magnus asks.

“None of ya business.”

“Can you do anything cool?”

“I'm a wizard. And a chef. But no, before you ask, I don't cook. Sorry. Can't risk it.”

“The fuck does that mean? What's a cook who doesn't cook? Not a cook, that's for sure.”

“Fine, Dwarf boy, I WAS a cook. Happy?”

“Can. You. Two. Please. Stop. Arguing?”

“Well Iunno what his excuse is, but I haven't slept in two weeks! Gimme a break!!”

“I thought elves didn't need to sleep?”

“We don't,” Taako says. He doesn't elaborate. There's tears beading at the corners of his eyes but he seems like the sort of guy who would never admit it.

Silence falls over the group for a little bit. Taako slumps against a tree, one hand on his stomach, the other trailing against the ground. Merle lights himself a joint in the fire and proceeds to ignore the world. Magnus keeps turning the meat, worried he's doing it wrong.

Taako's amber eyes flicker in the firelight, watching him. His lips are just a little parted, showing off those freaky pointy sharp teeth. They almost look dorky, actually, because of the space between them. It's easier to think of Taako as dorky. Magnus settles on that. A long elf tongue flicks between the lips and licks some blood off Taako's nose.

Okay, nevermind, just freaky.

He turns his eyes back to the meat he's supposed to be cooking and prods at the fire. He grabs a log from the pile and props it on top of the existing ones as carefully as he can.

It takes a while for the whole animal to cook, of course. At one point, it looks like Taako has fallen asleep, but between his eyelids just a flicker of firelight reflects off his eyes.

“Alright guys, meat's done!” Magnus decides.

Merle sits up somewhat and reaches for a leg of cat.

Taako's ears fly to attention. He holds out a hand. Beyond this, he doesn't move.

“Get some yourself,” Merle quips.

“Fuck you, I caught it,” Taako says, wiggling his fingers. Magnus cuts a leg off for him and puts it in his hand. He eats it awfully slowly. “Ya overcooked it.”

“Well it's a good thing I'm not a cook,” Magnus says, calm as the night sky.

Taako grumbles but doesn't argue.

It takes Taako a while to settle down and go to sleep. Merle heads right into the tent once he's eaten his fill, but Taako messes around, mutters to himself, peers into the woods before curling up close to the campfire. He doesn't sleep even then, just stares at the flames as they start to burn low. His eyes are still open when Magnus decides the embers won't start a forest fire and goes to bed.

Magnus worries Taako might run away in the night. He's not sure why this worries him. Maybe because the elf obviously has an advantage in terms of stealth, or because he's a predator. Maybe he's worried for Taako's own safety. He doesn't know.

However, when he climbs out of the tent at dawn, Taako's still there, and all his worries vanish. He's hugging himself, muttering, but appears to be asleep. Magnus doesn't bother him. He digs out leftover bobcat meat from a waxed bag he'd stuffed it into last night and nibbles at it. It doesn't taste awfully good, and Taako was right-- it's overcooked – but it's mostly okay. It's much better than nothing.

Taako gasps awake and blinks at Magnus like the sun is in his eyes. Then he rolls completely over, which makes Magnus wince. He can't imagine living with ears that size, or the pain of having an ear trapped under one's shoulder. Taako makes no noise of pain, though, so maybe it's like having an arm stuck under you. You just deal with it.

“Morning, Taako,” Magnus says.

“Hey dog man,” Taako sighs. His voice sounds significantly less hoarse today. He sits up, running his fingers through his hair (Oh gods they're still caked with now dry blood) and turns to Magnus. He sizes him up.

“Want some?” Magnus offers Taako the bag of leftovers.

“Nah, thanks, I'm chillo. Don't wanna ruin perfectly good meat for ya. I should get cleaned up. Is there a river nearby?”

“Um.” Magnus swallows a bit of bobcat. “Yeah, there's one down the hill.” He points past the tent.

“How long do I have?”  
  
“Merle'll probably sleep for another half an hour.”

“Sweet. See ya then.” Taako turns and disappears down the hill.

Taako manages to appear back at camp after Merle wakes up. The tent's already down and Magnus's bags are packed but Merle's still puttering around to get everything together. Taako's clothes look a lot nicer missing dirt and blood. The knees of his shorts are ripped up, his boots are scuffed and the soles are starting to come away. His tunic is scratched up and the seam of one seam has pulled apart to the point where it droops down onto his arm, revealing a bony shoulder. They're also, miraculously, dry, along with his hair, which he's braiding back. Magnus figures he must not have been lying about being a wizard. He thinks he can spy the edge of an old wand sticking out of his boot.

“You ready to go?”

“No.” Merle says.

“Sure,” Taako says. He stands on his toes and stretches his arms over his head. For a moment, a tear down the front of his shirt shows every one of his ribs. Then it's back where it was and Magnus is left feeling a mixture of sad and uncomfortable. He's not even sure why he cares, but it feels wrong to see Taako like this. Even though he's only known Taako for a single night. Like he's met him before, in another life, and it wasn't like _this_.

“I guess we can go into town now that you don't look like a cannibal,” Merle says.

Taako flips him the bird. “Oh whoops, was that me?” He tucks his finger back down with his other hand and leans against a tree, arms crossed. “Betcha never starved in your whole life.”

“Bet it's your fault you've starved,” Merle snaps.

“What can I say?” Taako shrugs. “I'm just your average idiot wizard.”

“Wizards can't be idiots,” Merle says.

Taako laughs and- sure enough – that was a wand in his boot. “Hwell I've managed. Dunno even where I learned magic but I know it and I'm sure not a sorcerer. Magic's pretty close to me n all that good stuff but it doesn't run in my veins.”

Merle finishes packing with a snap. “So I guess you're coming with us, then,” he says.

“Yeah,” Taako shrugs.

“You better pull your own weight,” he growls.

“Yeah, sure.”

Plus one simple idiot wizard.


	2. Humans are strange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Koko and Lulu catch dinner in the woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you can't read the comic for any reason, there's a prose version right underneath it! There are some details in the prose version that aren't in the comic so it might be worth skimming anyway. :p

 

* * *

“I don't get it,” She says, holding a hand down. Koko climbs onto the rock after her. “Humans just, they're weird.”

Koko nods, following her through the woods. “Yeah.”

“They go to sleep super late in the evening and they don't wake up for nighttimes! It's no wonder we can outpace them.” She pauses at the top of a hill, standing on her tippy toes and looking out. “They all sleep the goddang night away.”

“Yeah.”

“You gotta problem if you can't outrun twelve year olds!”

“Mhm.”

“Do you hear any food?” she asks. Koko's ears twitch, and he focuses.

“Just rabbits,” he mumbles.

“Let's catch some rabbits, bro,” She grins, rubbing her hands together.

“We had rabbits last night. And the night before. I'm tired of rabbit blood, Lulu.”

“Would you rather have no blood?” she asks, kneeling on the rock. She's obviously searching for whatever he heard, her ears roving to catch noises, ready to spring.

“I guess not,” he decides, but he searches for the sound of big birds instead. He wouldn't mind an owl. He's always less practical than Lulu is.

Lulu catches some rabbits.

Koko doesn't find an owl. He does manage to fall out of the tree and land on his back, hard. He makes a little noise and Lu is back at his side, helping him sit up.

“You alright?”

“Yea, I'm fine,” he grimaces, stretching. “Fucking rabbits.”

“Like I said, better than nothing,” she singsongs.

“Right,” he mutters. It's still wriggling, of course. A dead rabbit won't pump blood right into your mouth. He bites the jugular, and sucks away.

Blood is like an elven superfood. It'll keep them going for almost as long as meat will, without draining the meat of nutrients. A couple of elves can hunt half as often as humans of the same size, age, and health because they can drink the blood of an animal one night and string the meat to their waist for cooking the next night. Koko and Lulu choose to cook the meat there, and put it away in a pack. It'll be fine and dandy for later, however much Koko will hate the taste of rabbit.

 

That's where the term feral came from. Feral elves are the ones who drink blood. The twins find it absurd-- blood drinking has saved their lives before, and they don't see how it makes them wild to do it.

 

 


	3. Desert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako gets himself lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MAN i haven't worked on this in a long time! Have another chapter, everyone! The saga continues.

Sun elves are designed to handle the sun, obviously.

They are not, however, designed to handle the sun for the whole time it is in the sky, near midsummer, in a desert, alone.

That is to say – Taako's ears are definitely sunburnt. It almost hurts to move them, a slow throb having become par for the course. He can't even cover them with his hood, they hurt so much. So he leaves it. They'll burn away and fall off and he'll just suffer through it. Maybe he'll learn what it's like to have tiny little ears like humans do. How much worse than elf's hearing is human hearing?

His feet burn through his shoes, too. He wonders how hot this sand is, and wishes he wasn't wearing heels when he left the crew.

He's better at magic than this, anyway – Stupid, stupid mistake, transportation spell gone wrong and he landed himself in the middle of bugfuck nowhere hellscape desert land. Taako doesn't cry, but he's sure he's cried at least three times in the – what? Week? - he's been wandering.

Thankfully, he can feel the sun sinking in the sky behind him, so it won't be so bad in a little bit. He's also exhausted. For some reason, wandering in the desert for days on end has lent him the most normal Elven sleeping schedule he's had since he was in his young teens.

He does curl up and sleep through twilight, wrapped in his robe, pressed against the sand. It's not a restful sleep. Of course it's not. Taako feels so, so alone.

He wakes up in the night, gets back to his feet and keeps walking.

 

Delirium is a funny thing.

In a thirsty, hungry, frightened elf, delirium means catching a jackrabbit with bare hands, sinking sharp incisors through flesh and licking blood from the wound. Red runs away from him, down his chin and onto the sand. He licks what he can off his face with a long tongue. It means snarling at snakes and chasing mirages. One evening, even, Taako bites his own arm, too thirsty to care about where a drink might come from. It's satisfying. It makes him dizzy. The blood is the bright color of the sky.

He gets up and keeps walking. The ground dips and swirls around him.

Delirium means forgetting what you stand for.

Delirium is a haze of blood and fear.

 

It's evening in the little oasis village-- it's never been given a name, really, it was just the oasis village, because no one else lives anywhere for miles and miles. The sun has just dipped behind the rooftops, and Alan is packing away his fence repair tools, taking off his headdress. He leans against the wall of the barn, gazing out over the horizon, past the edge of the trees and into the desert.

He sees someone walking. They're stumbling, wearing something large and formless, holding what looks vaguely like a rabbit in one hand. He squints. His first reaction is, why is a child wandering in the desert? But this person is too tall to be a child, and looks like an elf. He can just see the edge of ears in the light.

He steps back around the building for a clearer view, and then realizes his mistake.

The – the _thing_ , it – it starts _sprinting_ , and Alan quickly dips behind the building again, but too late, it's seen him, it knows where he's going, and somehing hits him hard in the back, sending him tumbling.

He has a moment, before the feral moves again, where he can see its face. It's a sun elf, which makes sense in the desert, but it doesn't look like a sun elf that knows how to live in a desert. Probably got itself lost. Its pupils are skinny slits, its ears dripping blood from terrible sunburns. Its lips are covered in blood – thankfully, probably animal blood, if it's been in the desert. Elf teeth are frightening. He's seen elves before, of course – a few live in the village, not many. It was always strange to see an elf eat normal food with teeth like that. Teeth so clearly made for a carnivorous diet.

The moment ends.

Having his jugular ripped open doesn't hurt as much as Alan thought it would. It doesn't take long to go numb, but it hurts more as a headache than as an acute pain.

And things shut down.

 

Conscious thought returns in bits and pieces. Emotions and memories. Fear, of course, that's the easy one. Fear is the emotion Taako understands best, even if he acknowledges it the least. He doesn't remember why he's afraid.

He stumbles into a cool corner and curls up. His ears hurt.

He misses Lup.

 

Taako wakes up shaking, curled behind some boxes in the night. He doesn't remember… well, a lot of things. He knows he was in the desert. He's not in the desert now, clearly, or if he is, he's in an oasis of a reasonable size.

His hands are covered in blood. He killed some rabbits, he knows that. Gods almighty, he hates rabbits. He's always hated the taste of rabbits. He practically lived off them for several years as a child. It's a little incredible that he's still good at catching them.

He licks a finger. It doesn't taste like rabbit blood. It tastes rather a lot more like human blood.

Well fuck.

There's no time to feel bad about it, though. He's in a village, and he's killed one of the villagers. However, the nearest safe place could be miles and miles away, more than a day's trip, and he doesn't have any way of carrying water.

Taako sits up, slowly. His body aches all over, especially his ears. Oh gods, his ears. They smell like blood. He runs a hand over the skin and, yeah, that's no good by any measure.

His body feels sluggish, like he's moving through molasses. His legs ache, presumably from days of walking.

Taako has reached a different survival technique now-- it's a less primal, more calculating one, but it comes with that anxiety that bubbles in his chest and makes his head ache. It doesn't feel much better. He has to weigh his options.

He smacks his lips. He _has_ to find water. He's not a child anymore, he can't live off rabbits, but whoever he had killed earlier had enough blood in them to sate his hunger pangs well enough. Water is the next issue, because however much water there is in blood, it's not enough to keep him thinking rationally.

Taako gives himself a moment to calm his heartbeat and slow his breathing.

Taako wanders downhill till he finds the spring, cleans himself off as best he can, and starts peeking in windows. If he can find an elven household, they _might_ understand. If nothing else, he can use his wizardly magics on them. Nothing too powerful, because he's still feeling shaky, even after drinking his fill of real actual water.

Real actual water. He sighs. It has to have been at least a week since he had any of that. It feels good.

Taako lies down on the edge of the spring for a little bit, letting himself gather strength. He guesses this is a mostly human village, because no one seems to be out at this time of night.

When he finally gets back to his feet, the moon is high in the sky. It's almost the edge of morning twilight, when elves ought to sleep. He's rested now, though, and he doesn't plan on sleeping any more.

He does find a house with its lights on, and sure enough, the person inside is an elf, with big dark ears much like Taako's own. He checks his hands and mouth for blood one last time and knocks on the door.

“Hello--” The elf pauses, looking Taako up and down. “Are you the fella who killed Alan?”

“Hell, Probably,” Taako shrugs. “M real sorry bout that mess or whatever. Yanno.”

“Riight. I don't trust ferals. Git.”

“Now hold on! Chaboy just got lost in a desert. S'not my fault I went feral! You got a water bottle? I'll be sooo gone if you do.”

“I'm not giving you a waterskin.” The elf crosses their arms.

“Listen.” Taako blinks past the elf and into their house. “I could just die, but I don't feel like dying this year. I died a few years ago and my sis cried so hard. It was unfuckingbearable. So. Gotta figure out how to not die, yea?”

“What --” The elf turns around. “Are you magic?”

“I'm a wizard, babe,” Taako intones. “So yeah.”

“Is the robe red to hide bloodstains?” The elf leaves the door open. “The hell is the IPRE?”

“Interplanar research and exploration, somethn like that anyway, you'll have to ask captain Davenport about the color, tho,” Taako says. He's pulls some dried meat down from the ceiling. He tears into it. He eats some carrots from the windowsill.

“That's my food, I have a family to feed!”

“Been there, Kemosabe,” Taako says. “I really don't wanna worry them.”

“I-I have a gun,” the elf says. Taako spies the flintlock on the wall.

“Oh cool, you guys have nonmagic missiles on this plane!” He snatches the largest waterskin. “Where's the nearest village?”

“Get out!!” There's a bang, and Taako realizes this guy actually fired a fucking gun at him. The audacity. He drops the waterskin to clutch his shoulder and rushes out of the house as fast as he can.

He does manage to keep the cured meat and carrots in his possession, but without water, Taako's fucked. He gets a drink from the spring and cleans out the bullet wound (just a graze, thank gods, that could have been a lot worse). He rips a strip off the bottom of his robe. Now it's for hiding bloodstains, huh?

He manages to get his butt out of town before anyone can set up a real mob. He doesn't stop running once he's out, either, because if he could have run this far, someone else could have chased him this far. He has to keep going as long as he can before he's safe and even _then_ he's not safe. He's never safe. A numbing feeling sweeps through Taako and he stumbles again, breaking into a quick sprint before his head spins too fast and he has to slow down. He runs till the sun rises and keeps running, little spots of white showing up in his vision, taunting him.

He keeps running.

At some point, he collapses. Or at least, he has to assume he collapses, because he wakes up a while later lying on the hot desert sand, the sun taunting him overhead. Every part of him aches terribly and his injured arm doesn't want to listen to him when he pushes himself upright. He watches the sun blur for a moment, then forces himself to his feet and keeps stumbling along, trying to keep himself moving in about the same direction.

He eats rabbits again. This time, he makes sure he eats rabbits somewhat regularly. He makes sure he eats the meat, too, and not just the blood. Gods forbid he go completely feral again and kill another person.

Eventually, he does reach a town.

He's pretty sure he hallucinated it, but he sits down between some trash cans and shivers, wrapped in his cloak.

He decides the town is real when he wakes up again the next morning, and he's still sitting in between the trash cans. They're cold. They're too cold. He doesn't have the energy to move.

Time passes in fits and spurts. He watches people walk past. He sees a lot of sun elves, and a couple of times he calls out because they're shorter or their hair is the right shade or they're wearing a flash of red, but when they turn the face is always wrong.

He's almost given up when he sees a man in jeans walking with an elf in a red robe. The elf's ears are drooping down to their shoulders and their long hair is pulled back over their far shoulder. He pushes himself upright, trembling with the effort, and calls out.

“Lu--” He coughs, incapable of finishing the word, but it catches her attention anyway. Her ears flick over and she turns her head and he sees gold eyes and his own face shape reflected in hers. For a moment, his heart expands to fill his chest, but he's too numb and dizzy for that emotion.

The elf is in front of him all of a sudden. She's touching his face and saying something he can't quite hear. He tries to focus. That's – is that Barry bluejeans?

“Am I hallucinating?” Taako asks, as Lup pulls his arm over her shoulder.

Lup laughs. “Am _I_ hallucinating?”

“Can a mirage hallucinate?”

“Don't think so, Koko.”

He stumbles over his own feet even with her support, and suddenly Barry's ducking under his arm.

“Your ears are so burned, holy shit,” Lup says. “We gotta get back to the ship, okay? Maggie's worried sick over you. Dav's convinced you're dead.”

The words swim in Taako's befuddled brain. “I killed someone,” he says, after a few minutes. Or hours. A while, some time, what's time again? He's not sure and he's not sure he cares.

“Oh honey, don't cry, you're dehydrated,” Lup says. “Barry, do you still have that water?”

Taako fights through the encroaching darkness to swallow the liquid Barry pours into his mouth. He's starting to lose his grip. He's going to wake up and none of this is going to have been real. The stream of water stops, and he wants to reach for it but his arm is somewhere else. He can't feel his arm. Does he have an arm?

He must ask this out loud because a voice somewhere to his right says “You have _two_ arms, Koko.”

“Oh, that's a lot,” he mumbles.

“It's just about average,” the person on his left says.

“Me too.” He's starting to slip.

The people carrying him are talking again. He hopes they're good people. Does he know them? He can't remember. His brain isn't working quite right right now. He leans into warmth and lets himself slide out of consciousness.

 

“...Can't do much else till he wakes up, honest.”

“Someone _shot_ him.” Lulu. Lulu's voice.

“Yeah, and I fixed that. That's fixed. Get off my ass.”

Taako feels _bungus_.

He wants to lie still and wait till all the people are gone (cept maybe lulu. He needs a hug but he can't hug in public, that would be bad.) so he can wake up and not be surrounded by people. He's already overwhelmed and they don't even know he's conscious. There's at least three people here – a creaking of boots on one side, and the two talking, Merle and Lup.

He doesn't manage to suppress a moan, though, when he tries to move his head. His whole body aches with an intensity, his right arm throbbing in several places and his ears stinging like the skin on them has been pulled off.

The people in the room do go silent, though.  
“You awake?”

Taako can't respond. He's too heavy.

“Maggie, why don't you get some soup? I left it on low on the stove.”

“Okay.”

The third presence leaves the room.

He cracks open his eyes.

“How ya feeling, Ko?”

“Bungus,” he manages.

“Can you sit up? Magnus is bringing soup.”

Taako doesn't want to look like a wimp, so he says yes. It was a mistake. He almost passes out trying to sit up in bed, even if he does manage to get himself more upright.

Magnus comes bursting back into the room, holding a bowl of soup, and Taako can feel panic rising in him again, but Lup gives him a look and Magnus puts the bowl down on the bedside table and leaves again. He hears Merle cast another healing spell and some of the pain washes away.

“We might actually make it out of this cycle all in one piece,” Merle says.

“Hm. Been a while,” Lup said. “We thought you were a goner, bro.”

“Me too,” Taako says, in between bites of soup.

“For Merle's sake we're gonna have to take a few days to get you all up and running again, especially since you needa fix your starvation and dehydration without his help. And sleep. Gotta sleep, bro. I know you hate that.”

He grumbles. It's fine, though. They care about him and that's why they're like this.

“What happened down there, anyway?”

“Can you fetch me a glass of water?” He asks. Lup pours him a glass and he puts his soup bowl back down on the table. Merle's just sitting on the other bed, watching them. It makes Taako a little uncomfortable but he's not sure how to tell him to stop.

“Soooo?”

“Well the teleport spell went wrong, obviously,” Taako says. “Made a stupid mistake. And then I was stuck in the desert walking for like, a week. And I found an oasis and killed a guy and drank his blood and stole some other guy's thing, hell I don't know. But they shot me and I ran and I was back in the desert again. And then I found town and I don't remember too clearly but I guess I saw you or you saw me? I don't know. It's something like that.”

“You said my name.”

“Oh, well that's cute.” He fills his mouth with water and pointedly avoids saying anything else. “I'm tired. Mind if I catch some more z's?”

“Do you want me to stay?”

He thinks about this for a moment, and then nods, scootching over on the bed. Lup climbs under the cover and nestles her head at his neck.

It's warm. He wraps his arms around her and pulls her close.

**Author's Note:**

> _There are no words_   
>  _For what we need_   
>  _The hunger bites and burns_   
>  _The wolf heart beats_
> 
>  
> 
>  _It’s not like this_  
>  _For everyone_  
>  _Our wolves run wild_  
>  _They might just eat us up._  
>  -wolf song, charming disaster


End file.
